How strong are Administrators? The Ancient Turtle crushed Ouyang and the third echelon like a mountain grinding bone, yet a hand from the River of Time cut him down.

Jiling did serve as this star sea’s Administrator. She borrowed Ouyang’s strength and held the Ancient Turtle for a heartbeat, not because she was weak, but because her wounds ran winter-deep.

“Travel well.” Ouyang smiled and waved, like dusk wind parting reeds.

He could read the Ancient Turtle’s intent. Watching him fall with a calm smile, no regret in his eyes, understanding rippled through Ouyang like a leaf landing on still water.

The talk of becoming an Administrator was a veil; his true wish was death, like a candle longing to go dark.

As the oldest creature, his years stretched like an endless desert no one could map. Jue survived a cosmic epoch, and even as a god his soul began to rot like damp wood. The turtle’s years were tides beyond that number.

He’d lived too long and grown tired, like a lantern burning past dawn.

He wouldn’t take a shameful suicide. As the oldest, he would die like thunder splitting stone, blaze in battle, and burn the last oil of his life.

In the end, he got his wish. Slain by an unknown Administrator of the Sealed Land—it was a soft snowfall for his war-worn heart.

Smiling, he fell. The white-haired elder unfurled into a colossal turtle. Without the leash of will, his true form shone; in Ouyang’s eyes, it was no smaller than the sun, spanning the stars like a drifting continent.

“Yeah… he left, but he left us a mess,” Ouyang breathed, like wind through ruins.

If Ouyang’s glimpse of the future was right, the turtle’s death wasn’t a period. It was a stone dropping into deeper water.

A vast black fog swaddled the body. Blood-red eyes surfaced in the mist like banked coals.

“Original Sin!” Wuhen ground his teeth, the stoic mask creased with frustration. Original Sin reaped the fisherman's catch. He was weak; even at his peak he could not anchor it, and now he was like a bow string at low tide.

As Ouyang hesitated, two figures were yanked from the fog—Loyin and Little Sin. As kin of Original Sin, they sensed each other. His worst fear bloomed; he couldn’t forget the dream where Loyin scattered as black butterflies across the night sky.

Jiling had sensed this too. She brought Little Sin to Ouyang to shelter both. None of them thought the blade would be another Original Sin. Now, the one inside the Ancient Turtle ignored the wards laid in Eternal Slumber and tore Loyin and Little Sin straight out, like nets snapping in a dark current.

Original Sins devour their kind. Loyin and Little Sin once wanted to consume each other, like two storms colliding. Jiling took Little Sin, Loyin stayed by Ouyang. Over the years, Loyin shed that instinct like old scales; she no longer wanted to devour. Little Sin lacked human warmth, but she could be Loyin’s companion, a sparrow at the same window.

But the Original Sin wearing the turtle wasn’t split into “Origin” and “Sin.” Its naked instinct howled. It wanted to swallow its kin and grow like a cyclone fed by warm seas.

Loyin sank into the fog, struggling. “Brother…” She reached for Ouyang, but the distance stretched like a cold river. No tears, no smile, only calm, as if she had read her fate in frost.

Little Sin was more childlike. She looked at Ouyang, wanting that “brother” to lead her out of the swamp-dark mist.

Ouyang gripped the Causality-Piercing Sword. Jiling’s past “sorry” probably pointed to this day. This Original Sin was a leftover from the last epoch’s war, a relic of an enemy Administrator, a rusted anchor still dragging ships. It should have been Jiling’s burden; now it weighed on Ouyang like winter iron.

“Xi, Wuhen… I’m asking you.”

“But…” Xi’s face rippled like a storm-tossed lake. She didn’t want this end.

Fighting the Ancient Turtle hadn’t crushed them. They had met him; he wasn’t a slaughter-all blade. When Glorious Moon charged into the River of Time, he only made her sleep. In their eyes, he was an elder pine on a cliff.

Original Sin was different. It carried the enemy Administrator’s ruinous will, mindless like wildfire, hungry to erase every field and roof.

“Xi, I know you’ll back me,” Ouyang said, voice steady like a drawn blade.

He shaped a crystal and set it in Glorious Moon’s palm as a message. He pushed gently; the unconscious girl drifted away like a leaf on a current.

Xi bit down, wanting to speak, but she knew the gravity. There was no time; hesitate, and Loyin and Little Sin would be swallowed like stars in a black tide.

Maybe after, Ouyang could fight Original Sin. But if Loyin and Little Sin were eaten, he couldn’t bring them back, like broken wings refusing the sky. Even if he could, he wouldn’t risk them.

“They’re my sisters. If a brother can’t shield his sisters, what’s the point of his breath?”

“I’m not a sis-con, but protecting sisters is every brother’s duty,” he said, a vow carved into stone.

“So, everyone, I’m asking you. The karma Jiling left—I’ll repay it with your strength, like iron paid back in fire.”

His move was burning the boats. Jiling’s earlier loan left them frail. If Ouyang borrowed again, they would sleep, not waking for thousands, tens of thousands, even a million years, like seeds under glacier ice.

If he failed after borrowing, the main force would sleep. Under this starry sky, nothing would check Original Sin’s rampage; wolves would run the snow.

So this was a fight with backs to the river.

“I get it, A‑Yang. As Jiling said, we’ll meet again in that radiant age,” Xi said, a torch in the night.

Next, Wuhen, the stoic, spoke lightly. “Farewell… in that future,” his words fell like petals.

In Eternal Slumber, Kanofia, Dongze, Agas, and the others shared a knowing smile, like moonlight on still water.

“Future… see you.”

“Yeah. Everyone, see you in the future.” Ouyang felt their threads of intent, though he didn’t draw on Litian or the Little Yellow Book among the Three Eternal Artifacts.

He lifted the Causality-Piercing Sword from the ground. One by one, powers flowed along the causal chains into the blade, like rivers into a sea, and the sword, as a relay, fed them to Ouyang.

“Loyin, Little Sin, wait. Your brother’s coming through the storm.”

The black fog split, then surged back like tidal night. Loyin and Little Sin were in dire straits; Ouyang dove straight into the gloom.

Inside, it wasn’t endless fog. It was a plain of nothing, a white desert without sand. Loyin and Little Sin were held by a man whose body flickered like a ghost about to slip away.

Ouyang didn’t underestimate him; he grew solemn like iron under rain. He felt an aura like Mapleleaf’s, Jiling’s, and that stranger in the Sealed Land who claimed to guide the dead—cold wind that carries law.

This Original Sin was a product left by the last epoch’s enemy Administrator. The figure inside it was likely that Administrator’s lingering obsession, a thorn nailed into time.

This was the real BOSS, the hand behind the storm.

Administrators don’t meddle in each other’s duels. This enemy’s projection didn’t reach back through the River of Time; it was planted in the last epoch, a seed under old ash.

Unless he was an idiot, he would bar future Administrators from interfering. So this fight would have no outside hand, unlike the Ancient Turtle’s—doors bolted against the gale.

No words—only eyes speaking like cold moons.

Grinning like a torn beast, the enemy Administrator’s phantom ripped Loyin and Little Sin apart, bodies shredded like paper in a gale.

“Loyin!! Little Sin!!” The cry cracked like thunder.

With a streak of madness, Ouyang screamed. Everything matched the dream: Loyin’s body became countless black butterflies that flew into the dark, Little Sin the same, a flock swallowed by night.

The enemy left no time for grief. In seconds, Ouyang was bloodied head to toe. It was only a phantom, but his heart was chaos—a sail in storm—thinking of the girl calling “brother” all day, the child who never grew up.

His chest was punched through; blood fanned through the space like scarlet rain. He had let go of the Causality-Piercing Sword, as if abandoning the helm on a black sea.

“Sigh…”

A long breath drifted from the Ancient Turtle’s abandoned shell. Suddenly, the vast shell broke into countless particles and flew to Ouyang like a star swarm. The enemy phantom frowned, wary of this ripple in his pond.

Wreathed in countless light motes, Ouyang gave a small laugh.

“Ancient Turtle, thanks. Without you, I’d still be drowning in that loss.” He picked up the Causality-Piercing Sword, mind clearing like dawn over frost.

“Loyin, Little Sin, it’s okay. Your brother will always be with you.” The black butterflies that were their shattered bodies flew into Ouyang’s Black Wing, like when Bai became light and merged with the White Wing.

In that instant, the Black Wing and White Wing blazed brighter, twin suns on a dark horizon.

Cold-eyed, Ouyang drove the Causality-Piercing Sword into his own heart, ice striking glass.

There was a power he treated as a forbidden shore, never touched. Now, if he didn’t cross it, there’d be no chance, no bridge in flood.

“Ultimate Art—Void!”

In a blink, the enemy phantom’s eyes widened. Ouyang smiled, blood trailing from his lips like spilled wine.

In that instant he shouted, “Litian, it’s time. With this moment’s power, I’ll send you on your way!”

Time and space snarled; everything twisted like molten glass.

In a pale space stood Litian, the Little Yellow Book, the Flowing Light Wheel, and the Eternal Pendant, figures like statues in fog.

“Flowing Light, I’m counting on you. Even with Void’s instant power, I can’t do this alone. I need your cross‑time force as a hub. It’ll leave you lost in the sea of time, and only the Little Yellow Book and the others can fish you back.”

The white‑haired Flowing Light girl nodded, like a snow sprite at dawn.

Litian, Glorious Moon—while power flares in this erupting instant, I’ll braid flowing light into a bridge through time and space. I’ll send you to that future era. Your master needs your strength to battle the Chaos Demon-God.

Book of Epochs, your task matters most. When they first return to that starfield, different cosmic laws press down like iron chains. They’ll be crushed hard. I’ll send you to the Ninth Epoch’s dawn in that starfield—when they just reach home. But the fetters of the “past” will drain you dry. You may fall into sleep and wait to wake, slowly. With you there, their future will have a measure of safety.

The Book of Epochs’ mission is vital. When the ones from the Other Shore departed, they carried nothing away. Anything born under this sea of stars cannot cross; another universe’s laws would scour it like frost.

So things like the Book of Epochs and the Heaven Departing Divine Sword were left behind. The Void Illusion Realm is a waystation for those divine artifacts and godbeasts. Without the Three Eternal Artifacts keeping strict order, this starfield would be wrecked by masterless weapons and beasts, a storm without reins.

Ouyang used this method to send the Book of Epochs to that starfield, shielding it from erasure by alien laws. As the Book of Epochs, it can house other artifacts and godbeasts within its pages, like constellations in a tome. Once the Book awakens, the weapons and battle partners of the gods of the Other Shore will return like dawn.

Then… my friends, we’ll meet again in that distant future.

Ouyang, don’t worry—this grandmaster will call you back from the void in that far future. The Book of Epochs vowed, its tone firm as stone.

Then, everything thinned to nothing and dissolved into the void.